


Someone Shining, Bringing Destiny

by JDylah_da_Kylah



Series: Phototropic [1]
Category: Starfighter Eclipse
Genre: Emotional, Eventual Romance, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Series, Romantic Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-17 05:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8132674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JDylah_da_Kylah/pseuds/JDylah_da_Kylah
Summary: Pre(!)-Starfighter: Eclipse. Selene waits for his Fighter to arrive; bigger a thrall than learning the intricacies of the Kepler, larger a threat than the Colterons, bigger an Unknown than the cosmos spinning before them all is this: the mystery, the man.Or: Someone. Anyone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> “Who knows who will come through the door? Someone youthful, bringing hope. Someone strong, bringing power and domination. Someone handsome, someone to worship. Someone pliant, bringing succulence. Someone smiling, bringing love. Someone shining, bringing destiny.  
> Someone.  
> Anyone.”  
> (From Witi Ihimaera's _Nights in the Gardens of Spain_ ).
> 
> I stumbled across that quote and was immediately hit over the head with a metaphorical lightbulb: _Selene._ How Selene's waiting in the beginning of SF:E for Helios to arrive. What's he thinking? 
> 
> Something like that, I'd imagine.
> 
> Also . . . why is it Selene who knows what's hiding in the drawer at the end of his route? ;)
> 
> This one's more of a standalone work, but I tossed it at the beginning of _Phototropic_ for consistency's sake. It might not always live there. We'll see. Actually, it was really hard to write this while bearing in mind that readers who actually start here haven't read all the other things that happen later in the series. Heh. Uhm, if I did actually spoil something inadvertently, I'm sorry. (And let's be honest: it's really more of a character study than anything.) ;)
> 
> Oh! "Incurvatus in se" is a phrase Martin Luther used to describe a state where we're curved inwards on ourselves, as opposed to living and thinking of others. To him it was a truly diabolical state of sin; in Selene's usage, it's more . . . well, just being selfish. But Selene _does_ like to flaunt his intellectual prowess, so I couldn't resist.
> 
> As always, thoughts/comments/critiques/suggestions are welcome. <3 I do hope you enjoy!

The bunk was like any other: had it not been for the _Kepler_ 's wakening hum, Selene might have fancied himself still in training, back on the base. Back on Europa.

That moon was not home, had never been, nor could Selene have believed that so many hours could seem so much like years. But here he was, and there the hours were, a wicked, sharp-edged, bright-lit blur burned into his memory and almost entirely forgotten now. And he wondered why, all of a sudden, he felt so homesick when home was left so long ago . . .

The bunk—the room with its four walls, the raw horizontal lines of simulated daylight, like blinds of windows, eyes half-cracked—the drawers beneath the desk—the gaping maw of the closet—two chairs, lonely, like rocks jutting up from the surface of the ocean—

The bunk, and the bunks; the regulation blankets folded neatly; paltry pillows hardly worth the materials used to make them.

Selene turned slowly, slowly, the atmosphere oppressive, somehow, though the air was thinner than Europa's. He tried not to consider that they'd all be breathing one another's recycled exhalations: it was at once too intimate and, by turn, too sterile.

He refused to allow himself to look at the door.

The hallway had not bothered him, the lights, the _other_ doors: like gateways to worlds he might never come to know: faces, names, anonymous. The _Kepler_ was not large, as Alliance vessels went, but there were always those who wished to remain unknown. And every crew, like every training class, had its own dynamics: perhaps here the Navigators were the pretentious, catty sort who kept to their own, who thought the Fighters were little more than violent beasts—

Selene paused a moment, realized he'd been pacing, realized that the repetitive motions and the small circuit had left him slightly dizzy. There'd been little to unpack—uniforms, mostly. Nothing personal. Whether or not they kept an artifact from home was up to an individual, entirely, and Selene had been one of the few who traveled light. His memories of his mothers were enough.

Except—

Except the jar he'd had the foolishness to leave out on the desk, in plain view of the door.

Selene felt his cheeks flash hot and ducked his head.

_If my Fighter saw that—_

A shiver danced along his spine, the words enough to leave a tremor in his hand as he reached out—

* * *

_They'd stumbled into it, in all reality: into each other in the mess hall first: into friendship over hours poring over algorithms, schematics, lectures thick as rot and dry as desiccated bones; into late, late nights, speaking of everything and nothing, everything and nothing because they knew they'd see each other no more once officially deployed—_

_And into a shivering, shy-lipped kiss and a hushed, hushed-rushed "I'm sorry" negated by a soft sigh and—_

_That they were older than the rest, it seemed—both in their early twenties—that they were virgins, still, though neither quite knew why—and that they more-found-than-lost themselves with one another was not some fool's romantic act. It was not a threshold, not taboo, not even so much a thing to_ treasure _or idealize except that it was_ right _. An accident? Unplanned? Of course. It often was._

_But right._

_And tonight, tonight the pale-skinned, white-blonde-haired young man—so much like the rest—knotted his hand in tresses of ombre hair, kissing him, kissing him with the fervor and the novelty of it, as if their learning how to do it right was like how they approached any other thing. Their time in training was when to make mistakes, if ever such a time was true: what applied to Starfighters or warships' systems or the formations of the Colterons were, in their own ways, no different than the delicate interplay of lips and tongues and teeth._

_And delicate it was—they both were, with each other—from him, from him, was first learned the importance of a gentle-handed and lithe-fingered touch._

_Tonight, again, the final night, the young man pulled back, trembling, and smiled: his lips were pale, as was the rest of him, like hoarfrost; his eyes were blue, were blue, but a mockery of blue, a fabrication: perhaps that's how he found himself waking up one morning cradled in olive-skinned arms. No one_ looked _at him, for fear of being looked at in return and so finding themselves trapped in a bionic gaze. Except_ him _, the half-Māori boy with strange, star-grey eyes his own and an accent which sounded, always, just a bit like music._

_"Who do you think he'll be?" The words were soft, were like something one might say at a wake: empty fragments for the living._

_"I don't know."_

_A hand reached up to brush at bangs, the curve of a thumb enough to eclipse the fine, fine hair entirely. "What's your task-name, then?"_

_"Patroclus."_

_"Hm. Too long."_

_"Feh. And you?"_

_"Selene."_

_The young man tasted the name, ran it across his lips, played it against his tongue as again they kissed—deeply, but not needfully: they were not foolish or starry-eyed enough to trick themselves into thinking they were lovers. Especially not now, when two strange, black-clad men waited for them on the morrow—men who might themselves be lovers, might be not._

_"Selene. Hm. What's his name? Does he know yours?"_

_"I don't know. I doubt he does."_

_"I'll bet mine's Achilles."_

_"Tch. What if he's . . . what if you don't work well together?"_

_A shrug of pale shoulders._

_"I wonder . . . if you ask for reassignment . . . do you get a new name? If someone dies, are we just bodies switched around to fit these pre-determined shells—"_

_A sigh. Not melancholia, not fear, mere curiosity. Perhaps that's why they formed such a sudden bond—powerful, but with no pretenses of what it wasn't, what it couldn't be. They were not adverse to shining lights in dark corners, even now when the darkness threatened to encroach into the room itself, not just the corners: when the questions might one day be very real._

_"Why are you asking me?"_

_The young man—never Patroclus, never, not to Selene (who didn't so much mind his own task-name, even if it was but a shadow)—pulled back again, slipping from the bunk to fish through his belongings: he came from a wealthy place and had the luxury of_ things _, though all but one would amount to nothing in the morning._

_He turned back—he held a jar; he all but forced it into an olive hand. "You shouldn't be afraid."_

_"I'm not."_

_A stare, now, cold, hard and indifferent: Selene then realized why so, so many turned away. "Do you love me?"_

* * *

"No."

The Navigator shook his head, rolling the jar between his hands, remembering what an odd parting-gift it seemed before carefully laying it in a bedside drawer. Odd, perhaps, but it was the young man's last act of love, and his only declaration, and his hope.

Selene ran the words across the loom of his thoughts again, pulling at the threads, tangling himself in knots. _His_ Fighter would be coming through that door. The seconds and minutes had pared themselves down to almost nothing now and he could hear the subtle aberrations in the _Kepler_ 's engine's rhythms: he could feel the beast begin to stir.

He thought again of Patroclus, of whomever his Fighter might be. Achilles, perhaps, as he'd guessed—but it didn't really matter—it was just an empty name.

* * *

_He could be . . . someone. Anyone._

_Shiloh was his name, who gave me this, but . . . we seemed so little of our_ true _selves in training . . . and he never seemed as if Shiloh fit, as if he wore it, claimed it, breathed life into it. I never really called him that . . . not even our first time . . ._

_Whaea, Mother, what would you think of me now?_

_To him, to him I'll be . . . I am . . . Selene._

_(Will I ever—will I ever tell him—?_

_My name. My name. I never even told Shiloh.)_

* * *

_This is a non-standard deployment but once we're finished looking at this_ Derelict _—what then? We hold each other's lives—and names are just as fragile—_

_Selene . . . a goddess of the moon . . ._

_Will you be—?_

* * *

_What_ will _you be?_

_Fighters aren't all of one stripe, I know that much. Will you—what will you look like? What will you say? Our scores must match but those are numbers, are our tests fed through computers, that's nothing, nothing to speak of flesh-and-blood._

_Will you be a brute? A boor? An enigma, keeping to himself?_ Incurvatus in se _?_

_Will you be . . . gentle . . . will you be bright . . . will you be . . . will you bring . . ._

_Not what—but who—_

* * *

_What I would never, never, never tell Shiloh is all this time I've been so afraid of being alone. Once I held whole worlds in my hands, in my heart:_ _I feared no one, nothing, not even the Unknowns, not even the Colterons, not even . . . not even so much death, so far from home._

_It's wrong, to be so frightened, to hate the silences, the void, to emptiness beside me._

_I'm sure it showed up on my tests. Must have._

_You . . . you._

_Someone. Anyone._

_Were they merciful—Command?—did they see in us . . ._

_(Do you . . . need me, too?)_

* * *

A shadow underneath the door, a step, a moment's pause.

Selene glanced up, the pulse thick and heavy in his throat. The jar was hidden away, the room was empty, all that remained was he, himself, an anxious Navigator who could hide too well his fear, because his ancestors were warriors: who could stand erect, spine straight and shoulders back and smile and hold out a steady hand.

* * *

He was tall, was solid and well-muscled, even if his eyes still carried the haunted shadow of starvation not-forgotten, though a year or so of Alliance rations had filled him out and given him some extra flesh. He moved with an easy step, and the hand not holding a rucksack was loose at his side. Dark hair fell into his eyes, the bangs offsetting the stubble of an undercut. He had blue eyes—but not Shiloh's—oh, no, these were like—were like the ocean after a storm—

Selene blinked, didn't realize he was staring.

A smile crossed the Fighter's face. Playful. Genuine. He had an _honest_ face . . .

There were the formalities, stiff phrases, holding each other at a distance lest something seep through the cracks. And the awkward shake between two steady hands but palms a bit too warm, too slick; the same pulse as rapidly ran its course in the Navigator's veins was high in his as well.

And then:

"I didn't expect to get such a cute Navigator."

A shy slur, cheeky and ingenuous on any lips but his.

He didn't pull away, just stood there, holding Selene's hand longer than was proper—which was good, was good, because the latter wasn't sure if he'd be able to stand on his own. The heat in that broad and calloused hand suffused him, burned at cheeks and blood and body in a way Shiloh never had—

_This is—this is—what is this—? I—_

_(Please. Say something.)_

The smile was still there, but different—somehow different—

Selene closed his eyes.

"I'm Helios, by the way."

A twitching of the Navigator's lips, a giddiness, a thing he half-berated himself for and yet couldn't help believe—wanted to believe so badly—as Shiloh knew he needed, more-so, far more-so than himself—why he'd given him, of all things, the jar—

Selene exhaled slowly, opening his eyes again, startled that there was a blush on broad cheeks, too, and that the Fighter had not looked away.


End file.
